EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 207 



the yields of these three plots with the average of the yields of the three other 

 plots with rows the same distance apart and fifteen pounds of seed per acre, it Is 

 found that twenty pounds gave an average yield of 24,762 lbs. and the fifteen 

 pounds of seed per acre, 22,617 lbs., showing a good economy in applying the larger 

 amount of seed. 



Plot 10 had the rows eighteen inches apart and the seed was put in with a hill 

 <iropper which left one seed at each eight inches of row. Here the yield was 22,436 

 lbs., not quite as large as the average of. the three plots sown in th usual way 

 but. the expense of thinning was considerably less than that of any other plot in the 

 .series. 



The analyses of the beets either at the station or at the factory show no relation 

 however between the width of the row and the per cent of sugar in the beets. 



Mr. Albert Wilterdink, besides carrying forward for the station the tests of 

 varieties on his farm near Holland, eonsented to try some experiments on this 

 •question of the width of rows. He had three plots, each .256 of an acre, one drilled 

 in rows eighteen inches apart, the next twenty inches and the third twenty-two 

 inches. The yields were as follows, in pounds per acre of clean and topped beets: 



Yield per acre. 



18 inches 23.113 lbs. 



20 inches 22,980 lbs. 



22 inches 21,823 lbs. 



Here the difference in yield slightly favored the narrower row but still not in 

 amount suflScient to pay for the extra length of row and consequent greater cost 

 of thinning and cultivating. 



In concluding our work on this important factor of beet growing, the conclusion 

 seems inevitable that a row narrower than twenty-two inches is never advisable 

 except upon the very richest soils while a wider row, up to twenty-eight inches 

 is surely more economical and profitable on soils of average fertility. 



V. FEETTLIZEK EXPERIMENTS. 



Two sets of experiments were conducted for the station, testing the influence of 

 the application of various combinations of commercial fertilizers on the yield of 

 sugar beets. What fertilizers are needed for beet production is determined pri- 

 marily by the composition and physical constitution of the soil. There can never 

 be devised a formula which shall give the best proportions of nitrogen, phosphoric 

 acid and potash for sugar beets on all soils. One soil is lacking in sufficient potash 

 to produce a maximum yield of beets while another has sufficient potash but lacks 

 phosphoric acid. There are few soils in the State upon which the application of all 

 three of these dominant fertilizing factors will not produce increased yields. 



The fertilizing experiments such as those to be described below are primarily 

 therefore, tests of the needs of the given soil and cannot aid in performing an 

 impossible task, namely, in devising a formula of universal application. Each 

 farmer must test the matter for himself upon his own farm, each farm on a given 

 typical soil area having a different history and therefore a different appetite for 

 fertilizers. To ask the soil which fertilizing ingredient it most needs, he must lay 

 off plots of equal size upon one of which shall be applied a strong nitrogenous fer- 

 tilizer, upon the next phosphates and upon the third potash salts. He may wisely 

 go further and apply the combinations used in our work to thus determine upon 

 which ingredient the emphasis should be laid, normal quantities of the others 

 being supplied. These experiments are therefore reported, not as accumulating 

 data to determine a formula of wide application, but as Illustrating the increase 

 in yield that may be expected from the application of the fertilizing materials 

 named upon the kinds of soils described. 



The claim is not made that these commercial fertilizers can in any way take 

 the place of barnyard manures. The latter, besides supplying nitrogen, phosphoric 

 acid and potash, bring to the soil humus and humus-malting materials and a host 

 of bacteria useful in setting free the plant food already existing in the soil. The 

 humus aids in increasing the water holding capacity and, with the bacteria, brings 

 about the chemical and biological actions which help to make available the stored 

 up plant food. 



